Katie Laur

Let us now praise boiled custard, fried quail, short biscuits, and family.

You can live carless, but not friendless: a short history of my life without wheels.

I went downtown on a recent Friday night to see the Blue Wisp Jazz Club in its new location. When I slipped in at Seventh and Race, leaving the rattle of city life behind me, the band was playing a fresh, lilting take on Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Desafinado,” the sensual rhythm of the bossa nova wrapping the listeners in its tenderness, its fluid movements. The sound of Phil deGreg at the piano mingled with the tinkling of glasses and the low murmur of conversation. Candles flickered on the black four-top tables. The place was packed; the joint was jumping.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was touring.

The first time I went Christmas shopping in Cincinnati was in the late 1960s. I had just moved here from Alabama, and I was away from my family for the first time. Lonely doesn’t even begin to cover the emptiness I felt.

When Katie met Pester, it was love at first coffee stain. An interview with the elusive man of occasional sorrow.

It was the best of times, then the worst of times. A Main Street remembrance.

I started my radio career at WNKU-FM, the public radio station at Northern Kentucky University, on the first Sunday of November, 1989.